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The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs

probus

Posted 07 April 2009 - 02:06 AM

probus

Member

4 posts

Joined 27-March 09

Hi there, well after getting all hardware to do this job I started to work on it, when my hard disk (seagate barracuda 1tb) is conected normally (with pcb on it) I can see on hyperterminal these: LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051, so far I'm ok, the problem begins when I put the card between the head contacts and the pcb, after remove pcb, place the card between, and place the screws, I connect the TX and RX ports to my hard drive, the 3v battery I'm using and put the power (from my pc) to the SATA hard drive, run hyperterminal, press CTRL+Z and it says connected but anything happens, hit again CTRL+Z and nothing happens, never happens anything with the card placed behind the pcb, I've checked the TX and RX and there are just fine... I'm kind of lost... I'm desperate, I need HELP please!!!

LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051 isn't bad.This message is because you have BSY problem.You need connect negative terminal from the battery or adaptor to GND of the hdd (the third pin of jumper's connector, near of TX).You unmount the PCB and you do the BSY reparation procedure.

Hi pichi thanks for fas response, I've just do what you tell me, here's my conection, hope I can explain it well Adapter TD to TX seagateAdapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure: 1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc4.- Run hyperterm5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK6.- in the left down corner it says : connected7.- hit CTRL+Z8.- Nothing happens It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

pichi

Posted 07 April 2009 - 02:15 AM

pichi

Member

Member

166 posts

Joined 03-January 09

...Adapter TD to TX seagateAdapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure: 1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc4.- Run hyperterm5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK6.- in the left down corner it says : connected7.- hit CTRL+Z8.- Nothing happens It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

cl00m

Posted 07 April 2009 - 02:59 AM

cl00m

Member

6 posts

Joined 06-April 09

I've connected hdd GND pin to black wire of power unit, and GND on the converter with another black wire ... I've tried with tx rx, and tx2 rx2, in hyperterme that says connected but CTRL Z doesnt answer ... I have put a paper card on the 3 pins of the motor behind the board of the hdd. But nothing happens.

The exact image of my converter :

When do I have to power on the HDD ? After power on max3232 converter so before going in hyperterminal, when exactly ?

Attached Files

cl00m

Posted 07 April 2009 - 08:52 AM

YES IT WORKS !!! I had to connect a 5V wire and flip tx and rx ! And of course I had to power on sata connector during the hyperterminal CTRL Z, that I hadn't understood !

I've worked so hard that I have made photos ! Here is my resolution :

For MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX 22 (SN STM3500320AS) with MX15 Firmware

First of all : With MAX3232 adapter You have to connect RX to RX and TX to TX !!

Hardware used :

. standard PC with one serial connector (com1). rs232 cord. max3232 adapter (rs232 to ttl). ATX PC Power Unit. Sata Power cable from another open PC

The photos

This photo shows my assembly with ATX pc power unit :

To make this ATX power unit works only when I connect a power cord, you have to shunt 2 wires of the ATX motherboard connector :

The max3232 assembly :

The final assembly with HDD :

For HDD pins, you can use a wire from jumper from a pc motherboard (like the ones for switchs and leds) and flatten it with a plier, then it's solid to connect to :

Summary

. Connect rs232 cord to your pc and to MAX3232 adapter. Connect red wire and black wire from atx power unit to V+ and GND on max3232 adapter. Connect TX max3232 to TX hdd pin. Connect RX max3232 to RX hdd pin. Connect power sata connector. Put a paper card (or other) onto 3 pins motor hdd but behind hdd board (between), you have to pull off a screw to do that (the nearest from the motor). Power on ATX power unit with a power cord, the d1 led of the max3232 blinking. Launch hyperterminal, set it, connect it. Power on the second PC where power sata on the hdd is connected to. Type CTRL Z and so the commands listed there : http://www.msfn.org/...o...8807&st=100. When finished and HDD works, you have to flash your bugged firmware with a newer, I have used this one : link to the firmware iso from seagate, its a bootable iso !

That should work, I hope ... For me It worked !!! Thx Gradius, you rox !!

probus

Posted 08 April 2009 - 01:13 AM

probus

Member

4 posts

Joined 27-March 09

...Adapter TD to TX seagateAdapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure: 1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc4.- Run hyperterm5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK6.- in the left down corner it says : connected7.- hit CTRL+Z8.- Nothing happens It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

Kaidiir

Posted 08 April 2009 - 11:50 AM

Kaidiir

Member

1 posts

Joined 08-April 09

Greetings fellow Seagate drive victims

I had a 7200.11 die on me last Monday and managed to get it un-bricked (from BSY state) last night, after following the excellent help and advice on this forum. IMHO, someone better have gotten fired from Seagate for this FUBAR of a situation. Allowing a bug like this to ship in millions of drives worldwide is absolutely unacceptable.

Anyways, for what it's worth, I figured I'd detail what I did to get my drive working again. The drive in question shipped with a Dell XPS 730x system that I bought in January. Wonderful machine, zero problems whatsoever until one morning I started it up and received a "insert boot media or specify boot media location" BIOS message. Thank the gods I had a backup drive. There's actually a somewhat devastating bug in Windows XP (haven't looked for it in Vista) where data stores created by the Files and Settings Transfer wizard can become easily corrupted, thus trapping the data inside them. I learned my data-loss lesson and to this date never run without AT LEAST one backup at any given time.

In a panic, I ordered a worked for him: FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB Cable (USB on one end, 6 colored wires on the other end). After hours of tinkering with it with no success, I sped off to a local electronics store and bought a USB-->Serial cable and a Serial-->TTY adapter. Fast forward a couple of days and several more hours of messing with it, and the only thing I managed to do was somehow cause a hard reset in my power supply, scaring the hell out of me.

I was at a loss. So I started reading through this entire thread again, looking for anything obvious I missed. On page 35, I came across the following post from AlexLilic:

WOOHOOO!! I just successfully unbricked my drive by following the instructions from this thread. All of my data is accessible again (and now safely copied to a new drive).

Let me just extend a heartfelt "thanks" to the people who contributed to this happy day!!!! Over the past months I have read posts from Gustek, Fatlip, Gradius, Aviko (and of course others). In actual fact I am really glad for the timing of my fault - because it let me share this journey with them by reading their posts as the solution unfolded.

The funny thing is that if the DR companies had just been transparent about what they do, and charged a little less for this fix, I would have used them weeks ago. I called 2 local DR companies and asked "how much *IF* it turns out to be the well known 7200.11 SD15 BSY error?". If they had been transparent and said "Quick fix - but we still need 300 Euros to cover our overhead" I would have said "fine" and given them the disk. Instead they they basically said "How much is your data worth so that I know how much to charge you?" (i.e. quoted 600-900 Euros). As a result they didn't get my business, and I suspect they won't get many others. When I finally got a working TTL adapter (thanks Alexx86) the solution indeed took 3 minutes.

Because I had many difficulties with my first adapter - I have included my tips here:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 - Buy an adapter which you KNOW works and is EASY! (Easier == less steps == less risk)The first adapter I purchased was a USB Signal to RS232 TTL UARTDespite a LOT of effort, I could NOT get a terminal session established with the drive. I tried all suggestions (grounding, different power supplies, with and without PCB connection, etc.)Shorting TXD and RXD (loopback test) worked so I knew the UART was not faulty - but connecting to the Seagate PCB gave nothing other than the "Arrow" in Hyperterminal. A further problem occurred because i didn't realise that for my chip, VCC on the TTL output was connected to 5v, so when I connected my 3v batteries to it they were "charged" by the UART chip and literally popped whilst connected to the drive (at this point I was sure it was game over :-))

2 - Keep it SimpleI decided to try one last time with a known adapter. I contacted a local poster in this thread (alexx86) who confirmed for me that this part number had worked for him: FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB Cable

This adapter rocked - it was soooo easy by comparison:- No guesswork. Good documentation. Good drivers.- It is USB, so no RS232 port required.- It came with drivers for XP, Vista, etc. - but I didn't need them (just "plug and play" on my machine)- There was no need for additional battery power supply. The cable includes a 3.3v VCC already.

3 - Connecting it (these steps thanks to Alexx86)Connect a Standard SATA power cable to the drive, and then connect the USB<->TTL cable as described below. Note that there was no need to ground between the USB<->TTL cable and the SATA cable (i.e. they are seperate). I did however connect 3 USB<->TTL wires to the drive PCB (3rd one being GND) and I used the same PC to provide both SATA power and USB<->TTL cable).

This USB<->TTL cable has 6 wires. Only 3 are connected to the Seagate PCB. Of the remaining 3 wires, 2 are joined together and the final one is unused.USB<->TLL Cable Connections:- Orange (TXD) - Connected to 1st terminal pin on PCB (closest pin to SATA adapter)- Yellow (RXD) - Connected to 2nd terminal pin on PCB (2nd closest pin to SATA adapter)- Black (GND) - Connected to 3rd terminal pin on PCB (3rd closest pin to SATA adapter).- Brown (CTS) and Green (RTS) are tied to each other and nothing else (for flow control). I would have thought this was unnecessary - but I did it to be sure.- Red Wire (VCC) is not used.

4 - Fix your driveOpen Hypterm and Ctrl-Z to confirm you have connection. Then follow the commands from Gradius/Aviko. I had trouble deciding whether to follow Gradius or Aviko's solution. I felt loyal to Gradius, and found his instructions more readable - but some of Aviko's advice was also clearly valuable.

In the end I mixed a little. I used 2 pieces of paper card to isolate both the Motor connector (3 pin connection) and HDMA contacts (IC-style connection) and started with Gradius' approach. As I have a 500gb Seagate however, I couldn't resist trying the F712 commands that Aviko mentioned which are only apply to my drive (see post #610). Therefore I ended up not using the Glist Erase command ("F3 T>i4,1,22 (enter)").

My summary is that Aviko's advice is clearly knowledgable and he has added additional value to Gradius' excellent solution thread (note that I did not say it was Gradius solution - but it IS Gradius' thread, so please don't point out that someone else created the solution first). Without Gradius however, most of us would not have our data - me included!

Gradius and Aviko - thankyou BOTH so VERY much!!!!

Within MINUTES, I was at that magical F3 prompt in HyperTerminal, and within a few more minutes my drive was fully functional again! In my experience, using the direct USB-->TTY cable was a lot simpler than assembling a connector from a serial cable (USB-->Serial adapter for many people probably, as few computers these days have a serial port on the mobo). To any and all who come across this thread and this post, I would highly recommend the USB-->TTY cable. I purchased the jumper wires from the first post of this thread for $5, and the cable for $20. Yes, it's more money than the other solution, but I personally am willing to spend a few extra bucks if it means less headache and getting my drive back and working.I'd like to give my thanks to all the people who invested so much time and effort into this solution. I'm going to try to get the word out to everyone I know about the 7200.11 drives, hopefully I'll be able to prevent more people having to go through this whole ordeal.

As an amusing fact, I live about 5 miles from Seagate's customer service facility in Scotts Valley, California, USA (listed as so on their support website). Getting this drive fixed means I don't have to go up there with eggs and TP...

Their ebay page has the settings for the jumpers. I used the Null modem setting.

I had a couple issues/points I'd like to share. I used a USB hub for my power source for this board, I figured if I messed up, all I would blow up is the USB hub. I grabbed a USB cable, cut off the end, found 5V+ and 5V- and attached them to the MAX232. Worked great as any other voltage would not power up the MAX232. I also had to add a ground from the MAX232 GND to the next pin on the HD (right beside TX). Without it, I was only getting garbage out of the HD. I saw a couple of people post that, easy enough to do since I used a breadboard for my wiring.

probus

Posted 08 April 2009 - 02:28 PM

probus

Member

4 posts

Joined 27-March 09

...Adapter TD to TX seagateAdapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure: 1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc4.- Run hyperterm5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK6.- in the left down corner it says : connected7.- hit CTRL+Z8.- Nothing happens It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

Well finally today in the morning my disk drive war RECOVERED!!!!! thanks a lot to everybody who post, answer and work on this project, because you made it possible! Thanks Pichi all your help, I recovered my disk drive 1tb and make the firmware actualization, hope with that I don't have any problems....THANKS A LOT AGAIN TO ALL OF YOU!!!

Ok Advancing on my work... F3 T> just apear tonightthen I hit /2 and give me F3 2>but when I type Z it send me this : LED:0000000CE FAddr:0025CBC3 twice and then no more F3/2> sign.... now, whats wrong?thanks.....

franklav

Posted 08 April 2009 - 09:11 PM

I had a dead BSY drive and thanks to this thread, I've gone to the local electronics shop, bought a couple of caps, a MAX232, a DB9 female, and after a bit of work, I got a new working HD !

Thanks to everyone which has contributed, especially Aviko, which by the way, got me out of a situation no one mentionned here, so I thought I would post it, it could help someone else:

When I got to the point of reformatting service area partition 0, with

m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22

upon entering the command, I waited an hour, without getting a reply. I was tempted to pull the plug and try it again, but was scared since everyone said that the drive would be dead if powering off at that point.
Lucky me, Aviko was online and suggested it, and just starting the drive normally (no insulator trick) and trying again this last command. And it worked!

So, if like me, the command never replies after an hour (probably less!), you can probably do as I did and safely power cycle, and repeat only that last command.

sauac

Posted 09 April 2009 - 11:54 AM

sauac

Member

1 posts

Joined 12-March 09

Hi, this is my first post in this forum and I’d like to thank everyone who helped in any way towards the successfully recovery of my clients hard drive using the methods outlined in this now mammoth post. I have been reading and taking snippets of information from every response and am so happy that it worked.

The affected drive is from a HP TouchSmart IQ500. It is a 500 GB drive and was suffering from the BSY error. But now it’s all good.

8thDwarf

Posted 10 April 2009 - 05:47 PM

8thDwarf

Member

1 posts

Joined 10-April 09

Many many thanks for the very informative guides and posts on this forum posted by Gradius2, fatlip, et al.

Was successful in reviving my 'SeaBrick' 7200.11 using a Mini USB Adapter from Arduino - http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/MiniUSB which uses the FT232RL chip from FTDI, and the step by step instructions from Gradius2's guide first time through without any problems at all.

cereal77

Posted 10 April 2009 - 07:01 PM

cereal77

Member

1 posts

Joined 04-April 09

Someone earlier in this thread asked if anyone had successfully RUINED their drive by this process. I'm not blaming the process, (just myself) but here's my woeful story and if anyone can help, please do:

HD is a 1GB Seagate ST31000340AS w/BSY error (does not show up in BIOS)

2)used the cardstock trick to isolate the connectors, successfully got the drive to spin down, connected the PCB, then spin back up.

3)Successfully did a S.M.A.R.T. erase with "N1" command.

4)here's where the deviations start - after the SMART erase I did NOT detach the power from the drive. Why? Because I was reading some id***'s guide who linked from this forum and didn't mention that step. Is it necessary? I don't know, but I'd like to send the guy an email blaming him for my dead hard drive and the worldwide economic collapse in general.

5)after the SMART erase i got myself back to F3 T> and typed the "m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22" command. (I understand the revised version of the guide had a "m0,2,2,,,,,22" command - but someone said they are the same command as the "0"'s don't really mean anything... is that true?

6)waited... waited some more. Got really depressed around the 1hr mark. Knew I had heard of someone else who had this problem so I searched the forums. Eventually I shut the power down.

7)I tried again. Got the "F3 T>" prompt. Did the SMART erase, then went to power down...

8)here's the disaster - as I disconnected power, the RX or TX cable - or maybe it was both - got disconnected from the HD's PCB. I couldn't believe it. Knew this was bad. Wanted to chuck entire computer out the window.

9)So I tried again... and here's where I am. Everytime I hook up the HD, I no longer get any response in the terminal (i'm using Putty on WinVista 32bit). Feedback loop on the adapter works fine - so the problem is in the HD definitely. But no response to "CTRL-Z". Ever.

10)I've tried hooking up the HD through the SATA port - previously it was not recognized in the BIOS at all (BSY error) but now it does show up - as a 0GB HD. Doesn't show up as a drive in Windows but shows up as uninitialized in Disk Management. When it tries to initialize it, Windows says there is an I/O error. Is this the 0 LBA error?

11)Maybe you guys will think I'm an id*** for this but I thought hey, it can't hurt to try and update the firmware since the BIOS sees it. So I tried it... and it worked. It updated the drive with "MooseDT-SD1A-3D4D-16-32MB" which is the new SD1A I got off the Seagate site a few weeks ago in late March. However the drive still doesn't show up in Windows or Disk Management. So that didn't fix anything.

12)What are my options now? I considered buying another ST31000340AS and swapping PCB's to see if that works. Thought I read a post from someone who tried that and it worked. My other inclination is to stop pretending to be an expert at something I'm not before I do some real damage to my computer. Ideas? Have I bricked my drive permanently? Should I use it as a doorstop?

ElectroGeeza

Posted 13 April 2009 - 05:18 AM

ElectroGeeza

Newbie

Member

20 posts

Joined 05-April 09

Hi all!

I just found a similar guide for fixing the BSY type of error on Barracuda 7200.11 written by Brad Garcia at Google Sites. I have read it through but I still have some questions about the instructions given there. I hope someone here can give me the answers or explanations to them.

Here, I will copy and paste the instructions given at the above mentioned website. I will indicate a question by an boldface upper-case Q.

Loosen or remove the PCB from the hard drive

Place cardstock between the PCB and the contacts for the drive head. Leave the drive motor contacts in place.

Q: I think the guide written by Guardian2 suggested placing something between the PCB and the motor contacts. Was that wrong? I have to place the cardstock between the PCB and the contacts for the drive head and not the motor contacts?

Tighten the three screws closest to the motor contacts. Leave the other three screws loose or removed.

Connect a power supply to the hard drive PCB, but do not yet turn it on.

Q: What power supply? Can this be the power supply from the PC that's going to be running the terminal software? In other words, can I use only one computer for the whole repair work?

Connect the RS232-to-TTL adapter to your computer's serial port. This is the computer you will be using as a terminal to communicate with the hard drive.

Q: Can this be the serial port of the same computer that's going to power the hard disk drive?

Connect the RS232-to-TTL adapter to the hard drive's jumper block. You will be connecting two wires: receive & transmit for the serial connection.

Connect power to adapter - use +3.3v from the same power supply you will use to power the hard drive (orange wire is 3.3v, black is ground), or a 3V battery. If using a battery, connect the adapter's ground pin to the hard drive ground pin.

You will need a terminal program. You can use Hyperterminal, which comes with Windows XP & earlier. I suggest using putty. Configure your terminal program to use the serial port with the following settings: Baud: 38400, Data Bits: 8, Stop Bits: 1, Parity: none, Flow Control: none

Q: Can the terminal emulator program be running on the same computer that is going to power the hard disk drive and the RS232-to-TTL adapter?

Turn on power to the RS232-to-TTL adapter and the hard drive.

After a few seconds, Press CTRL+z. You should then see a prompt like this: F3 T> If not, swap TX & RX wires.

Access Level 2 (type /2).

Then spin down the (disconnected) motor.

Q: What do you mean by disconnected motor? Should I place a cardstock between the motor contacts as well as the head contacts? It sounds to me like the motor is not supposed to be connected with the PCB at this point.

Very carefully, remove the cardstock that you placed between the PCB and the drive head contacts.

Carefully replace and tighten the 3 loose screws. I suggest using a small piece of masking tape to help you hold the screws while you put them back in place.

Then start the motor (type U).

Next go to Level 1 (type /1).

And do a S.M.A.R.T. erase (create S.M.A.R.T. sector).

Q: Gradius2 (OP) writes in the first post "Power OFF/ON the drive (very important!) Wait 10 seconds and now Power ON your drive. Press CTRL+Z on terminal and type[...]" at this point, before doing the partition regeneration. What does he mean by powering the drive off and on? Brad Garcia is not mentioning anything about this.

Finally, do partition regeneration (F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (enter))

Q: Do I have to do the partition regeneration at Level T or Level 1? If it's at Level T, then there is one instruction missing in the guide by Brad Garcia that would instruct the user to type /T to go back to T Level, and then type this to regenerate the partition.

Do not turn off drive until you see this message. Once seen, drive can be turned off.

Power down everything, place drive back into your computer, and confirm that it's working.

Q: At what point am I supposed to test the RS232-to-TTL adapter?

Q: The pictures that Gradius2 has posted are suggesting that the pins on the back of the hard disk drive are TX, and then RX (from left to right in the orientation where you have the SATA and power connectors on your right hand side). The picture that Brad Garcia has uploaded is suggesting the opposite where the RX comes first and then TX which is the closest to the SATA connector. Who is right, and who is wrong?

Q: In post post # 101, Gradius has written "F3 T> <<< At this step you'll need to POWER OFF your HD for 10sec, and then POWER ON again. By power off, remove the SATA power (not PCB!)". What is he talking about? He said before that I shouldn't power off ANYTHING until I get the following message

If you didn't get the msg above, then you skipped something important, and turning off your drive now will render an unreadable drive, so be careful.

So, I'll ask again, what is he talking about? He obviously contradicts himself here. It's no wonder that people don't fully understand this guide. Should I do it or should I not do it? Should I power off the HDD at this point or should I not?

And how am I supposed to power it off? Just unplug the SATA power connector whilst the HDD is working? That doesn't sound right. He said "By power off, remove the SATA power (not PCB!)" so what else could that possibly mean then unplugging the SATA power connector while the HDD is still on? Shouldn't I power it off the normal and regular way, i.e. by powering off the computer which is providing power to the disk drive? (I mean the normal Windows start button -> shut down command.)

Q: In the same post # 101, Gradius has written F3 T>m0,2,2,,,,,22 <<< This command takes a little over a minute to complete!. This supposedly applies to BSY error. For the LBA 0 error he writes that one should use F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (enter).

In the above mentioned guide written by Brad Garcia at Google Sites, he is suggesting to use the F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 command for the BSY error (which Guardian suggested using for LBA 0 error).

So my question here is, should I use m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 or m0,2,2,,,,,22 for BSY error?

Q: In the same post # 101, Gradius has written "The wires was inverted to me and I didn't get nothing, so I just reverted and finally got a terminal answer".

Doesn't that mean that Gradius was wrong and Brad Garcia was right on the question I asked above, as of which pin is TX and which is RX on the back of the HDD? The TX is the one that's closest to the SATA data and power connectors on the right hand side, right?

Q: In post # 160, Gradius writes "Keep in mind, for BSY errors, you need to disconnect the Spin motor, or the drive will enter in that state (in around 2 secs) after it occurs you cannot enter anything, not even CTRL+Z".

Do I have to isolate/disconnect the disk drive head contacts or the spin motor contacts from the PCB? Brad Garcia at Google Sites is writing that it's the head contacts I need to isolate from PCB. Anyone know for sure?

If I, let's say, forget to isolate the motor contacts from the PCB and power it on like that. Would this mean that powering it on and entering the terminal software in this state will render the hard disk drive unaccessible permanently, or only temporarily until I isolate the motor contacts and retry again?

I'm not a newbie at this, I'm a DIYer my self but this whole black cloud of confusion surrounding this topic is what scares me. So many people say so many different things and tell of different approaches to the problem. The guide written by Brad Garcia is probably the most well written one so far. I was actually planning on writing one comprehensive and understandable guide my self, I already had began writing it actually. But after reading the guide by Brad Garcia I may just skip it, since he has already written he's guide the way I like it and would have written mine. Thanks Brad, very well written, you read my mind!

franklav

Posted 13 April 2009 - 12:20 PM

franklav

Member

3 posts

Joined 08-April 09

TO cereal77:

4) It is not an id***'s guide! Not to sound harsh but you missed a part of your homework. You're probably coming from Brad's page. He clearly states that the guide on the first page of this long thread has been modified and after considering everything he posted Aviko's version instead of Gradius's, and I agree with him having read about the first 39 of 59 pages here...Clearing G defect list has the potential to expose relocated bad sectors.

5) They are not the same you read wrong, but the one with the 0's is ok to run.

6) You probably didn't read the one who had that problem. I searched this whole thread and didn't find anyone mentionning it. I mentionned it after that because I thought someone (like you) might befenit from it ! Look the 4th post just above yours here! You just had to cut power, and just redo the last step (no need for N1 again)

8) -> so why do you blame the guide for this accident ? I'm not calling you an id*** by the way, s*** happens and it sucks, but still the procedure was correct.

10) I don't think so.

12) I would ask seagate to recover and fix your HD saying you had the SD15 fw problem. Sorry for your problems!

Someone earlier in this thread asked if anyone had successfully RUINED their drive by this process. I'm not blaming the process, (just myself) but here's my woeful story and if anyone can help, please do:

HD is a 1GB Seagate ST31000340AS w/BSY error (does not show up in BIOS)

2)used the cardstock trick to isolate the connectors, successfully got the drive to spin down, connected the PCB, then spin back up.

3)Successfully did a S.M.A.R.T. erase with "N1" command.

4)here's where the deviations start - after the SMART erase I did NOT detach the power from the drive. Why? Because I was reading some id***'s guide who linked from this forum and didn't mention that step. Is it necessary? I don't know, but I'd like to send the guy an email blaming him for my dead hard drive and the worldwide economic collapse in general.

5)after the SMART erase i got myself back to F3 T> and typed the "m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22" command. (I understand the revised version of the guide had a "m0,2,2,,,,,22" command - but someone said they are the same command as the "0"'s don't really mean anything... is that true?

6)waited... waited some more. Got really depressed around the 1hr mark. Knew I had heard of someone else who had this problem so I searched the forums. Eventually I shut the power down.

7)I tried again. Got the "F3 T>" prompt. Did the SMART erase, then went to power down...

8)here's the disaster - as I disconnected power, the RX or TX cable - or maybe it was both - got disconnected from the HD's PCB. I couldn't believe it. Knew this was bad. Wanted to chuck entire computer out the window.

9)So I tried again... and here's where I am. Everytime I hook up the HD, I no longer get any response in the terminal (i'm using Putty on WinVista 32bit). Feedback loop on the adapter works fine - so the problem is in the HD definitely. But no response to "CTRL-Z". Ever.

10)I've tried hooking up the HD through the SATA port - previously it was not recognized in the BIOS at all (BSY error) but now it does show up - as a 0GB HD. Doesn't show up as a drive in Windows but shows up as uninitialized in Disk Management. When it tries to initialize it, Windows says there is an I/O error. Is this the 0 LBA error?

11)Maybe you guys will think I'm an id*** for this but I thought hey, it can't hurt to try and update the firmware since the BIOS sees it. So I tried it... and it worked. It updated the drive with "MooseDT-SD1A-3D4D-16-32MB" which is the new SD1A I got off the Seagate site a few weeks ago in late March. However the drive still doesn't show up in Windows or Disk Management. So that didn't fix anything.

12)What are my options now? I considered buying another ST31000340AS and swapping PCB's to see if that works. Thought I read a post from someone who tried that and it worked. My other inclination is to stop pretending to be an expert at something I'm not before I do some real damage to my computer. Ideas? Have I bricked my drive permanently? Should I use it as a doorstop?

franklav

Posted 13 April 2009 - 01:03 PM

All your questions are answered already in this thread. Brad read this thread anddecided to use Aviko's/Yura's fix. Read my post above...

2) Between head assembly contacts

4) Well yes, but remember that as soon as you plug, the power gets on, and it's a bit clumsy to turn on/off the hd by connecting a plug on it especially if it's tight, but use your head. I used another psu for that (which I shorted on the ATX (to MB) connector to keep it powered).

5) Yes

8) Same as 5) obviously.

10) There's an important step that no ones mention in any guide that generates posts about this, but it IS mentionnedhere in this thread: after powering up the drive, WAIT FOR THE MOTOR TO SPIN DOWN before doing anything, or else you will be gettingerrors, even on the first command to spin down the drive. This is no big deal, but prevents you from executing the guide...

12) The contacts to the spindle motor are NEVER isolated ! Read a single guide! Dont make a salad of bits of (sometimes wrong) info here and there.

19) If it's still not responding after 30minutes or so, you can power off the drive, and power back on (without the isolation trick and everything), jump inside the terminal with CTRL-Z, and just redo the last command (/, then the m0 format command)

>Q: At what point am I supposed to test the RS232-to-TTL adapter?

God! At the END OF EVERYTHING ;-) Surely before anything no !? Just short theTX and RX lines (TTL side) of the adapter and in a terminal, you should seean echo of everything you type (make sure your terminal program doesn't have local echo too, or in that case you should see double echos when the TX-RX areshorted, and single echo when not... surely you can deduce why).

Obviously do this without the adapter connected to anything except power and RS232 <-> computer (or usb to computer or whatever).

>Q: The pictures that Gradius2 has posted are suggesting

The picture of Brad is WRONG. But he labeled it to indicate where to connectthe pin ! The label TX and RX depends on which point of view you take (duh)but it makes much more sense to label it from the side of the device on whichthe label is placed, which is standard for electronics.So the correct label from the HD POV is TX, then RX: The drive outputs at TXand receives inputs at RX, but obviously the TX line of the HD must go to the RX line of the adapter (duh).

You would've gone crazy then trying to understand this datasheet http://www.datasheet...ents/max232.pdfHere they use a confusing nomenclature, taking the POV of the RS232side of the chip at all times, so driver can both receive and send, likewise for what they call the "receiver" side (which also transmits )

Q... (all the rest)

Then, SCRAP THE REST OF YOUR QUESTIONS, all your other questions are answeredby this current post, especially see my answer to point #12, and read my post justabove (what to do if format (the m0 command) hangs), point 19), and remember my point 10)too!)

Oh and btw, I use the term partition format, some people (in this whole thread)are confusing what this means: it has nothing to do with your data partitions onyour drive, the m0 command (with the params indicated) format a service area partition and the service area is never visible on the SATA side of things...

Hi all!

I just found a similar guide for fixing the BSY type of error on Barracuda 7200.11 written by Brad Garcia at Google Sites. I have read it through but I still have some questions about the instructions given there. I hope someone here can give me the answers or explanations to them.

Here, I will copy and paste the instructions given at the above mentioned website. I will indicate a question by an boldface upper-case Q.

Loosen or remove the PCB from the hard drive

Place cardstock between the PCB and the contacts for the drive head. Leave the drive motor contacts in place.

Q: I think the guide written by Guardian2 suggested placing something between the PCB and the motor contacts. Was that wrong? I have to place the cardstock between the PCB and the contacts for the drive head and not the motor contacts?

Tighten the three screws closest to the motor contacts. Leave the other three screws loose or removed.

Connect a power supply to the hard drive PCB, but do not yet turn it on.

Q: What power supply? Can this be the power supply from the PC that's going to be running the terminal software? In other words, can I use only one computer for the whole repair work?

Connect the RS232-to-TTL adapter to your computer's serial port. This is the computer you will be using as a terminal to communicate with the hard drive.

Q: Can this be the serial port of the same computer that's going to power the hard disk drive?

Connect the RS232-to-TTL adapter to the hard drive's jumper block. You will be connecting two wires: receive & transmit for the serial connection.

Connect power to adapter - use +3.3v from the same power supply you will use to power the hard drive (orange wire is 3.3v, black is ground), or a 3V battery. If using a battery, connect the adapter's ground pin to the hard drive ground pin.

You will need a terminal program. You can use Hyperterminal, which comes with Windows XP & earlier. I suggest using putty. Configure your terminal program to use the serial port with the following settings: Baud: 38400, Data Bits: 8, Stop Bits: 1, Parity: none, Flow Control: none

Q: Can the terminal emulator program be running on the same computer that is going to power the hard disk drive and the RS232-to-TTL adapter?

Turn on power to the RS232-to-TTL adapter and the hard drive.

After a few seconds, Press CTRL+z. You should then see a prompt like this: F3 T> If not, swap TX & RX wires.

Access Level 2 (type /2).

Then spin down the (disconnected) motor.

Q: What do you mean by disconnected motor? Should I place a cardstock between the motor contacts as well as the head contacts? It sounds to me like the motor is not supposed to be connected with the PCB at this point.

Very carefully, remove the cardstock that you placed between the PCB and the drive head contacts.

Carefully replace and tighten the 3 loose screws. I suggest using a small piece of masking tape to help you hold the screws while you put them back in place.

Then start the motor (type U).

Next go to Level 1 (type /1).

And do a S.M.A.R.T. erase (create S.M.A.R.T. sector).

Q: Gradius2 (OP) writes in the first post "Power OFF/ON the drive (very important!) Wait 10 seconds and now Power ON your drive. Press CTRL+Z on terminal and type[...]" at this point, before doing the partition regeneration. What does he mean by powering the drive off and on? Brad Garcia is not mentioning anything about this.

Finally, do partition regeneration (F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (enter))

Q: Do I have to do the partition regeneration at Level T or Level 1? If it's at Level T, then there is one instruction missing in the guide by Brad Garcia that would instruct the user to type /T to go back to T Level, and then type this to regenerate the partition.

Do not turn off drive until you see this message. Once seen, drive can be turned off.

Power down everything, place drive back into your computer, and confirm that it's working.

Q: At what point am I supposed to test the RS232-to-TTL adapter?

Q: The pictures that Gradius2 has posted are suggesting that the pins on the back of the hard disk drive are TX, and then RX (from left to right in the orientation where you have the SATA and power connectors on your right hand side). The picture that Brad Garcia has uploaded is suggesting the opposite where the RX comes first and then TX which is the closest to the SATA connector. Who is right, and who is wrong?

Q: In post post # 101, Gradius has written "F3 T> <<< At this step you'll need to POWER OFF your HD for 10sec, and then POWER ON again. By power off, remove the SATA power (not PCB!)". What is he talking about? He said before that I shouldn't power off ANYTHING until I get the following message

If you didn't get the msg above, then you skipped something important, and turning off your drive now will render an unreadable drive, so be careful.

So, I'll ask again, what is he talking about? He obviously contradicts himself here. It's no wonder that people don't fully understand this guide. Should I do it or should I not do it? Should I power off the HDD at this point or should I not?

And how am I supposed to power it off? Just unplug the SATA power connector whilst the HDD is working? That doesn't sound right. He said "By power off, remove the SATA power (not PCB!)" so what else could that possibly mean then unplugging the SATA power connector while the HDD is still on? Shouldn't I power it off the normal and regular way, i.e. by powering off the computer which is providing power to the disk drive? (I mean the normal Windows start button -> shut down command.)

Q: In the same post # 101, Gradius has written F3 T>m0,2,2,,,,,22 <<< This command takes a little over a minute to complete!. This supposedly applies to BSY error. For the LBA 0 error he writes that one should use F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (enter).

In the above mentioned guide written by Brad Garcia at Google Sites, he is suggesting to use the F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 command for the BSY error (which Guardian suggested using for LBA 0 error).

So my question here is, should I use m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 or m0,2,2,,,,,22 for BSY error?

Q: In the same post # 101, Gradius has written "The wires was inverted to me and I didn't get nothing, so I just reverted and finally got a terminal answer".

Doesn't that mean that Gradius was wrong and Brad Garcia was right on the question I asked above, as of which pin is TX and which is RX on the back of the HDD? The TX is the one that's closest to the SATA data and power connectors on the right hand side, right?

Q: In post # 160, Gradius writes "Keep in mind, for BSY errors, you need to disconnect the Spin motor, or the drive will enter in that state (in around 2 secs) after it occurs you cannot enter anything, not even CTRL+Z".

Do I have to isolate/disconnect the disk drive head contacts or the spin motor contacts from the PCB? Brad Garcia at Google Sites is writing that it's the head contacts I need to isolate from PCB. Anyone know for sure?

If I, let's say, forget to isolate the motor contacts from the PCB and power it on like that. Would this mean that powering it on and entering the terminal software in this state will render the hard disk drive unaccessible permanently, or only temporarily until I isolate the motor contacts and retry again?

I'm not a newbie at this, I'm a DIYer my self but this whole black cloud of confusion surrounding this topic is what scares me. So many people say so many different things and tell of different approaches to the problem. The guide written by Brad Garcia is probably the most well written one so far. I was actually planning on writing one comprehensive and understandable guide my self, I already had began writing it actually. But after reading the guide by Brad Garcia I may just skip it, since he has already written he's guide the way I like it and would have written mine. Thanks Brad, very well written, you read my mind!

MXHammer

Posted 13 April 2009 - 02:35 PM

FDAXPunter

Posted 14 April 2009 - 11:38 AM

FDAXPunter

Member

1 posts

Joined 14-April 09

My apologies for the slight threadjack, but the strangest thing has happened.

The suspect is a Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB SATA drive. It was used as an external backup drive with a CoolerMaster XCraft USB SATA enclosure.
Yesterday, I tried moving some files across from the external Seagate drive to a PC that had recently had Win XP32 reinstalled. All seemed fine until the drive went all quiet and it disappeared from Win explorer.

So I cycled the power on the external drive, but to no avail. Rebooted the PC - nothing. Tried it on the laptop - Nope! Tried it on my wife's XP PC - nothing again.

So after some searching on the NET I realised that SD15 is bad and I should update the firmware - so I plonked the ISO image from Seagate (SD1A) on a CDROM and placed the affected drive inside the PC. It doesn't have an OS installed on it, but that's OK, it is only used for backups and besides I was booting from the CDROM. Also, the PC is small factor so it only fits one hard drive at a time.

Anyways, the upgrade was successful. I cycled the power, BIOS recognised it, and showed capacity as 500G. Sweet!

So I take it out of the PC and back into the Cooler Master USB enclosure. No go! None of the Windows PCs could see it. Grmph....

After some digging today, I discovered this cool forum. So here I was ready to order a cable as per the procedure in this thread and do the deed (after those !@#&^%!@# at Seagate indicated that they didn't give a toss about the data on my drive).

Then it hit me. Why was my BIOS detecting the drive correctly (model and size)? So, I decided to plonk it back into the PC - but boot from the LIVE Ubuntu Linux PC (my actual Linux PC only has IDE).

To my surprise LINUX could read it!!! WTF? I take the drive out of the PC and placed it in the external USB enclosure. Again, same PC but connected via USB - Linux had no problems!!!

So is it something with Win XP and my external enclosure? OK, I took the bootable Maxtor drive out of my PC and placed it into the eternal USB enclosure. I can access it from any Win XP PC.

So now I am confused. The external enclosure works with Linux and Win XP - when the Maxtor SATA drive is used, but only works with Linux when Seagate is used. The drive is not bricked as Linux can access it. And this happened all of a sudden. I transferred all this data from it and when the transfer completed - nothing! Now, I don't know if the firmware upgrade to SD1A helped, I never tried accessing the drive via Linux with SD15.

I can't help but think that this is a related Seagate issue. I returned a Seagate Freeagent drive last year because that had issues with Win XP, and now this? Maybe its time to go back to WD...

Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? I am going to extract the data from the drive ASAP, and then this 'nutcracker' is going back to Seagate.

zeddyh

Posted 14 April 2009 - 03:18 PM

Without your excellent advice I would still be swearing and cursing. There were a few confusing parts, and definitely a few heart stopping moments, but my drive is now alive, and my data safe.

For anyone else going to give this a go then I totally recommend the FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB Cable. This was a very simple cable to use following AlexLilic wiring directions (on page 35). The ideal part about this cable is you don't have to play around with any additional power (battery or mains). For those in the UK I got mine from FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB . Outstanding service as this was posted to me the same day !!

Note: You DO need the standard SATA power cable connected to the disk drive. (This confused me for quite a while) I used a spare power lead from another PC. This also allowed me to easily turn on and off the power to the drive.

For those with a disk set up like mine I had the jumper over the 3rd and 4th pins on the disk. I had to take this off so that I could connect the ground cable. As soon as I did that then the "F3 T>" prompt.

Also note that as I only used the single card under the drive spindle (the one at the centre of the disk) it means YOU MUST TURN OFF THE POWER TO THE DRIVE (i.e turn off the SATA power supply you connected to the disk) before you issue the Partition regeneration "m0,2,2,,,,,22" command. Gradius clearly mentions this a number of times, but I noted a few others have missed this step. I missed this the first time, but maybe got lucky and now have a working drive

As an additional item, I also had trouble updating the firmware. I was getting an error on booting from the CD. I had to turn off the RAID support within the BIOS. After that everything worked and I managed to update to the latest firmware. I can only hope that this fixes the problem for good.

Nothing changed the symptoms. If anyone knows of any solution, I welcome the feedback. Otherwise, thanks for the excellent instructions Gradius2and Aviko and for the excellent feedback I've gotten here. You guys did a great job of diagnosing the problem and getting a solution for many users!

sirbanks

Posted 15 April 2009 - 11:25 AM

sirbanks

Member

5 posts

Joined 09-April 09

Annihilator: I have been around and around with Seagate all day. They will NOT recover my data, but it is because I have the SD14 firmware in my ST31000340AS. They are willing to replace the drive, but no repair or data recovery (my error: for $2900 they will recover the data). So forgive me if I'm a bit pi***d off at a company with a known design defect that refuses to assist their customers. Needless to say this is my LAST seagate pos. Having said this, you may want to call them. I got the impression that if my firmware was SD15 they might have worked with me. Also call their data recovery company and they may be able to handle it for you. Good luck!